NO END TO MADNESS

Now it seems that NATO has also jumped onto the bandwagon of missile defense. I have no doubt that considerable weight was thrown around by American officials to achieve this goal. Looks like George Bush is doing an admirable job to cram as many misdeeds as possible in his last few months of tenure.

This surely cannot bode well for US security. No matter how many people write about it and rail against it, America is still living in the Cold War era. I have yet to understand exactly who is going to attack the US with missiles. North Korea? Iran? No matter how much the administration tries to convince the world, both these countries are not suicidal enough to risk annihilation by trying to attack the US or its European allies with such weapons.

In fact they are of course much cleverer than that. Low-level nuclear proliferation and terrorism has always been the most effective way they can damage US interests. If they really wanted to seriously affect US interests- and it's not a foregone conclusion that they wish to- these countries would help terrorists smuggle in dirty bombs or similar weapons through the still largely unguarded US borders. And in fact the much-dreaded dirty bomb attack, when it comes (and several analysts chillingly think it is only a matter of time), will probably be found to not be connected to any one of these states. Then only will the citizens of this nation realise how George Bush was misleading them for the last seven years under the pretense of false security.

Much is made of how he has kept the country safe since 9/11 and how there's been no terrorist attack on US soil. Maybe he has. But first of all it is all too easy to forget at what cost this has been achieved; while terrorists have not actually attacked the US since 9/11 many more have been created, forged by interventions in the Middle East and imbibed with hatred of the US, who could attack the country in the future. More importantly, we can be sure of one thing; if even a small nuclear attack occurs in a US city of any significant size in the next decade, the effects will be so horrible and so long-lasting that all the orange alerts and patriot acts of the last seven years will become a footnote to a footnote in American history.

The US continues to intervene and play games abroad and neglect its interests and borders in its own backyard. In spite of this being pointed out by a number of senior analysts, the administration is still making sure it roils the waters in foreign lands by waging invasive wars, spreading "democracy", and putting missile defense shields against non-existent targets.

As they say, those who forget history will be condemned to relive it...again and again. What have the citizens of this great country done to deserve such a dangerous and gloomy future?